Tennessee man sentenced in plan to attack New York mosque

Robert Doggart ran for Congress in 2014 in East Tennessee and finished with 6 percent of the vote.

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee man who was convicted of planning an attack on a New York mosque has been sentenced to nearly 20 years in federal prison.

WTVC-TV in Chattanooga reports that a judge sentenced 65-year-old Robert Doggart of Signal Mountain to 235 months on Wednesday.

He was convicted in February of solicitation to commit a civil rights violation and solicitation to commit arson of a building. A judge threw out two other guilty verdicts for threats in interstate commerce.

Doggart was convicted of recruiting about 10 people to attack a Muslim community called Islamberg. But the judge wrote that Doggart did not make "true threats" because he did not personally intimidate the community's residents.

Doggart ran for Congress in 2014 in East Tennessee and finished with 6 percent of the vote.